Customer Story: Chipping Campden School

Gut feeling and anecdotal feedback can often be the best form of evaluation but aren’t always sufficient to justify additional spending such as committing to renewals for online learning tools. Dominic Salles, Assistant Head at Chipping Campden School, a state secondary school in Gloucestershire, wanted to find a more objective way of evaluating the impact and determining the school’s ROI on their recent subscription to GCSEPod.

He explains: “We introduced GCSEPod because we were interested in embracing mobile learning. It didn’t take long to see that the content was being used.

“Students across the board were downloading the podcasts - nearly 10,000 in seven months - and anecdotal feedback from students indicated that it was a useful resource. What’s more, our 5 A* to C exam results that year, increased by 13%.

“Some might say….well, there’s your answer, GCSEPod must be working. Whilst my gut feeling told me that this was indeed the case, I knew that the success could also be seen as the result of a combination of resources, including the dedication of our teaching staff and students alike.”

“The time was coming to renew our subscription to GCSEPod. We had been deliberately cautious in buying only an annual subscription, and I wanted to see if the results could support renewing for three years. At around £2,500 per year, was GCSEPod the bargain that it seemed?

“As a school we use Fischer Family Trust (FFTD) data to set progress targets equivalent to the top 25% of performers. I decided to take this data and look at how individuals performed against their FFTD score and compare this to their use of GCSEPod. In essence I was looking to see if a pattern might emerge; would students who downloaded a greater number of podcasts be more likely to outperform their FFTD scores, or would this have little bearing?

“I looked at individuals across four core subjects where GCSEPod had been well utilised- German, French, English and Science. I looked at the amount of downloads and compared this to the student’s VA and against their FFTD target grade. In every subject, a pattern emerged.

The students who had downloaded only a handful of podcasts had slightly underperformed against all four criteria, whereas the students who had downloaded the most podcasts had greatly outperformed against their FFTDs, often achieving a full grade higher than expected.

“This armed me with quite powerful evidence that our subscription was delivering a return.

“But then what’s to say that those students who downloaded the most podcasts are not simply studious and conscientious natural achievers and would work hard to achieve their best regardless of the revision tools available?

“To ensure this wasn’t the case, I looked at the results that these students achieved in subjects where they did not have access to GCSEPod and used alternative revision techniques. In every case, the students downloading in excess of 50 podcasts in any one subject, achieved or significantly outperformed their FFTD target grade more consistently than they did in subjects where they hadn’t used GCSEPod. This evidence made the case for renewing for a further three years.

”Although 50 podcasts sounds a lot, it represents only about three and a half hours of listening.”

This assessment using FFTD or similar resources can evaluate the impact of a whole host of initiatives across school. Dominic Salles would be happy to share his experiences with other teaching professionals looking to determine the effectiveness of tools and resources they have introduced into their schools.